The 6 Best Bamboo Sheets for Silky-Soft Sleep

There’s a few different terms you might see when describing the bamboo fibers that make up a set of bamboo sheets. Bamboo isn’t naturally a soft fiber, so it goes through a harsh chemical process to break it down and turn it into fibers that can be woven into sheets. Each different name lets you know what kind of process was used and what kind of chemicals (and chemical off-put) were involved.

Bamboo rayon and bamboo viscose are sometimes used interchangeably, though they shouldn’t be since they aren’t exactly the same. Rayon is likely a term you’ve seen before, since it’s a general term used for fabric made from regenerated cellulose. Bamboo rayon usually suggests that it’s semi-synthetic and might not be 100 percent bamboo. Meanwhile, bamboo viscose also uses bamboo cellulose as its base, though it has a slightly different process. Viscose is another type that isn’t limited to bamboo. Just about every sheet I’ve tested claims to be 100 percent bamboo viscose.

Bamboo lyocell is the best of the three, because lyocell has a closed-loop process, which means that almost all of the chemicals used to make more lyocell get reused rather than dumped. Lyocell is a fantastic-quality fabric that makes for a great cooling sheet, so it’s a term to look for if you want to stay cool while you sleep.

While bamboo is absolutely cool to the touch when you first climb into bed, I often find that bamboo bed sheets can warm up quite a bit throughout the night. Some companies claim that the bamboo fibers can help regulate your temperature and wick away moisture. As a hot sleeper, I haven’t found this true with every set of bamboo sheets. Some have a weave that’s too heavy to keep me cool on hot nights, since no amount of promised moisture-wicking can replace good airflow to keep you cool. There are a few sets of bamboo bed sheets I recommend below that keep me cooler than others, but I recommend visiting our guide to the Best Cooling Sheets if you want to consider all kinds of bed sheets that could keep you cool, from bamboo to cotton percale and even sheets with phase-change material (or PCM) blended in.

Bamboo sheets have a thread count, just like cotton sheets, describing how many threads are in a square inch of the fabric. You don’t want too high of a thread count—anything over 800 is purely marketing-speak, and higher thread counts can mean shorter, lower-quality fibers. It’s better to have fewer fibers that are longer and stronger.

Bamboo made into rayon, viscose, and lyocell can be manipulated into a long thread more easily than cotton, of course, so we haven’t seen the crazy-high thread counts listed on bamboo sheets. Many of these sheets are also a sateen weave, which is a three-over-one thread style, leading it to feel softer but not be as breathable. It’s not always so simple as sateen will make you hot, of course; our favorite cooling bamboo sheets from Ettitude have a sateen weave, so it depends on several factors.

The takeaway? Don’t worry about thread count. Focus on type of weave and reviews (like ours!) to get a better idea of whether a set of bamboo sheets (or any other kind of sheet) will suit your sleep needs.